Jim Talent

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I do also, and certainly would hope that the agency will move toward as much securitization as financial soundness permits. That is what the committee has been working to accomplish.

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to yield if the gentleman wants a little more time. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York [Mr. LaFalce].

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, in closing, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to echo the remarks of the gentleman from New York [Mr. LaFalce], except in reverse. It has been a great pleasure this year to work with him. We all know that the gentleman knows how to be firm; he also does know how to be, and has been consistently, cooperative, and I have been very grateful to him for that. Also, I want to recognize the great depth of his knowledge in this field. We are passing, I hope and believe today, yet another reauthorization bill, and it will reflect yet again his great influence and his great expertise in this area. I want to thank also the members on both sides of the committee. The House has heard many of them today, and I am proud to chair a committee with so many committed and dedicated individuals. Mr. Speaker, this legislation is the product of bipartisan and bicameral efforts to reauthorize the Small Business Administration through fiscal year 2000. It reflects the efforts of many individuals and committees and their staffs. I would like to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Sensenbrenner], the chairman of the Committee on Science; and the gentleman from California [Mr. Brown], his ranking member, for their work on H.R. 2429, which has in large part become section 501 of this legislation. I would also like to express my appreciation to their staff who worked on this. I would also like to thank the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Stump], the chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon], the chairman of the Committee on Rules, along with their staffs, for their help in working on title VII of this legislation. As I have already said, I want to extend my thanks and appreciation to the gentleman from New York [Mr. LaFalce], the committee's ranking member, for his help in crafting this legislation. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the Committee on Small Business staff who worked on this bill: Emily Murphy, Mary McKenzie, Kiki Kless, Paul Denham, Charles ``Tee'' Rowe, and Harry Katrichis for the majority, and Jeanne Roslanowick, Steve McSpadden and Tom Powers for the minority. I urge my colleagues, in closing, to vote for this important piece of legislation.

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate bill, S. 1139, to reauthorize the programs of the Small Business Administration, and for other purposes.

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Kelly].

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, earlier today it was announced that the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure would bring to the floor H.R. 2834, Cleveland Airport Transfer. It is now expected that the committee will bring up the Senate version, S. 1347.

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on S. 1139, the bill just considered.

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs] for yielding me the time. I am reminded that, in the midst of all this heat and the very little light, and the chairman of the committee predicted it and I think he was right in doing that, we are dealing with an issue that really matters to real people, to the millions of kids and their parents in low-income neighborhoods who are trapped in schools, trapped in schools, where they do not learn and where they are not safe. The issue here, Mr. Speaker, is are we going to help these kids or are we going to sacrifice them on the alter of a system that is failing them and failing the country? Now, I say that with deep reluctance. But we cannot help these children unless we are honest about the situation. And we all know that this system is failing them. In New York, Mr. Speaker, 25 percent of New York's public school students will receive their high school diploma. The record in the parochial school system is 95 percent in New York. In Baltimore, fewer than half of the city's ninth-graders could pass a basic rudimentary math test. In Philadelphia, less than 6 percent of the city high school students tested competent in reading. Do you know what happens to you if you are in high school and you cannot read? You know what your life is going to be like? The system is so bad, Mr. Speaker, that none of us, whatever our feelings about this bill, would or do send our kids to these schools. So what does the bill propose to do? It increases the block grant money that we are giving to all the public schools and it allows them the discretion, if they wish to use it, to institute a school choice program of the kind that has succeeded in Milwaukee and Cleveland and in New York and places around the country. Why do we do that? Because this program works. The statistics show that. The waiting lists show that there are 20,000 parents waiting for 1300 privately funded scholarships in New York. And the reaction of the establishment shows it. Mr. Speaker, the reason for the hostility of this bill is not because people are afraid the bill is going to fail but because they know it is going to succeed and the better education these kids will receive will embarrass an establishment that is failing them. The arguments against the bill, I have been sitting here listening to them, one of them is that we are not helping enough kids with it. We would like to help more. I would say we are helping them all. We are giving them all some hope. We are taking money away from the public schools. No, we are not. No, we are not. We are giving them more money. And then we are letting them, if they wish, use the money for these programs. And then the argument that we are hurting public schools. Mr. Speaker, a member of the Milwaukee school board said that the school choice program there has encouraged and really forced his school system to adopt reforms that they should have adopted a long time ago. Apart from that, I have to say, with the greatest respect, it is time to stop worrying about the bureaucracy and to start worrying about these kids. The bureaucracies are doing fine. The number of employees in the Baltimore school system has doubled in the last 40 years, at the same time that math and reading skills are going down. Mr. Speaker, let us put a human face to this. One of the things that motivates me, and I have talked to a lot of these kids and their parents around the country, is an article in the New York papers about the privately funded school changes program they have there; and they refer to a little boy named Carlos Rosario, age 9, of Washington Heights. And he explains why he would like a scholarship if he can get one. He says, ``I don't like my school. The kids are too rough. They hit me and push me around.'' Mr. Speaker, I have a 7-year-old boy and two other kids. And if it was my boy who came home and said that, I would do anything I could to protect him. We have an opportunity in this modest way to take a step ahead for people like Carlos Rosario and his mom. I would ask the House to drop this partisanship and these extraneous issues and support this bill. Applicants' Parents Are Sick of Fear, Violence and Bad Teachers (By Tracy Connor and Maggie Haberman) Parents applying for private-school scholarships say they want a smaller, safer, more educational environment than the public schools provide. Single mom Shelmadine Usher of The Bronx is keeping her fingers crossed that her 6-year-old son, Timothy Moses, will get one of the coveted 1,300 spots. He attends a private school, but the financial aid that pays for it dries up when Usher graduates from community college in June. ``I went to public school in The Bronx and it was bad, and I always said that when I had a child, I would make sacrifices to send him to private school, she said. ``I'm ready to work two jobs if this scholarship doesn't come through.'' Timothy is a quick learner and avid reader, and Usher believes that private school--with higher standards and more parental involvement--will keep him on the fast track. The greater amount of individual attention is also a plus. Luiyina Abreu, a third-grader in northern Manhattan, is floundering in math class. ``I think they teach differently at private school, maybe better than at my school now,'' she said. ``It would give me a chance to do better.'' Classroom safety is another big concern. ``I don't like my school. The kids are too rough. They hit me and push me around,'' said Carlos Rosario, 9, who attends PS 153 in Washington Heights. His mother, Maria Jiminez, is seeking scholarships for Carlos and his sister, Karla, 8, who emigrated from the Dominican Republic in 1993. ``Public school is dangerous,'' Jiminez said. ``If you're a good parent, you teach your children how to behave at home. But then they go to school and it's a bad environment.'' Jasmine Abdul-Quddus, 8, who lives in the East Village and attends PS 19, agrees. ``They fight and call people names.'' Her mother, Kalima Abdul-Quddus, who moved here from Atlanta three years ago, is just as concerned about academic standards for Jasmine and her sister Aleah, 7. ``In private school, the teachers are more devoted to education,'' she said. ``In public school, they just push them through.''

Mr. TALENT. If the gentleman would yield, that is a different thing. Do the children who live in these neighborhoods want these scholarships? Overwhelmingly. If the gentleman will yield me about 30 seconds, I would be happy to tell him about that.

Mr. TALENT. I have talked to the superintendents in my area.

Mr. TALENT. That is one of the reasons why we are giving them the discretion to decide whether they want to under the program.

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, in the first place, I have the greatest respect for all of my colleagues, and I know that they are doing what they are doing out of passion. They are, however, dragging in a number of issues that are extraneous to this bill and making comments about those issues that are simply not correct. We never cut the school lunch program. It always grew. The numbers are here. The Head Start program is always growing, and my colleagues all know that. If my colleagues can defend the existing system, defend it. If they cannot defend it, then do something to help these kids. Concentrate on them instead of on the bureaucracy.

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, the bill will increase the amount of money that goes to the public schools because they are going to be able to keep more of the title VI money. It then lets them have the discretion to use that for these scholarships if they want. So it is going to mean more money for the public schools and more options for them and I think, and I hope, work out for more options for low income Americans. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I thank very much the experience shared by my colleague who just spoke. I would say to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Etheridge], if North Carolina or any State does not want to use these opportunity scholarships, there is a simple answer. They do not have to under this bill. It is up to them. I want to read a quote from Jonathan Rauch, who was writing in the November 10th New Republic. I think it is applicable to the debate today. ``It's hard to get excited about improving rich suburban high schools that act as feeders for Ivy League colleges. However, for poor children trapped in execrable schools, the case is moral rather than merely educational. These kids attend schools which cannot protect their physical safety, much less teach them. To require poor people to go to dangerous, dysfunctional schools that better-off people fled years ago, and that better-off people would never tolerate for their own children--all the while intoning pieties about `saving' public education--is worse than unsound public policy. It is repugnant public policy.''

Mr. TALENT. It is not a ``yes'' or ``no'' question.

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Missouri is asking me a question and I am trying to answer him.

Mr. TALENT. It will permit them to go to good schools in their neighborhoods.

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TALENT. I would say to the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Clay] that the kids from low-income neighborhoods around this country in my area and in his area want this program.

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. There have been a number of comments this morning, Madam Speaker, about the fact that this bill comes up under an unusual procedure. It does. These are unusual times we live in. There are millions of children trapped in schools, in America's urban core, where they do not learn, where they are not safe, and where their parents know with a terrible certainty that the schools are not going to change. Madam Speaker, I suggest that the only thing worse than being without opportunity yourself is to know that unless you can do something that you feel you cannot do, your children are not going to escape, your children are not going to have any hope or any opportunity. This bill, the HELP scholarships, offers a hand to these parents. It gives their kids a chance, a modest chance, but a chance at a decent education and a good school. If ever a bill aided the powerless, it is this bill. But, Madam Speaker, if ever a bill offended the powerful, it is also this bill, because there is in this country an establishment, and I speak here without malice, but an establishment that controls millions of dollars, whose power and prestige and position depend on defending the status quo and public education in these poor neighborhoods. That establishment, Madam Speaker, is not fighting this bill because they are afraid it will fail. They are fighting it because they believe it will succeed. They are not fighting this bill because they think it will result in poorer education for these children. They are fighting it because they think it will result in better education for these children if they have the same chance and the same options that all of us would want for our children in those circumstances. That establishment does not want the embarrassment of having it proven that at much less cost, these kids can be educated. It is not some great deficiency with them, but rather the system that has failed them and has failed their parents as well. And so that establishment has supplied enormous and unrelenting pressure against this bill and against Members of Congress to oppose the bill. I appreciate those of my colleagues who have been holding out and appreciate those who are going to vote for this rule. I think we are going to pass this rule, and I am grateful to all of my colleagues for that. So, yes, Madam Speaker, this bill is here under an unusual procedure. But the really unusual thing about it is that it is here at all, given the opposition to it. It is only here because of the forbearance and the patience of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling], the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, because of the persistence of the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs], because of the compassion of the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Watts], and because of the courage of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Flake]. To them, to those men who have done so much on behalf of these people who are so powerless, I express my appreciation. I ask all the Members to remember, if we do not represent these people, nobody is going to represent them. Do the right thing, vote for this rule, give these people a chance when the bill comes up for a vote on final passage.

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to an outstanding humanitarian, physician, teacher and scientist, Dr. Julio V. Santiago, who tragically passed away on August 10, 1997. It is an honor for me to recognize this outstanding individual, not only for his numerous professional accomplishments, but for the passion he gave to his research and patients. Dr. Santiago was a professor of pediatrics and medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and a member of the medical staffs of St. Louis Children's and Barnes-Jewish Hospitals. At Washington University, he served as director of the Division of Pediatrics Endocrinology and Metabolism and of the Diabetes Research and Training Center. He served among the leadership of the landmark Diabetes Control and Complication Trial and the ongoing Diabetes Prevention Program. Dr. Santiago was a respected researcher at developing methods for improving the management of diabetes. He served as editor of a national scientific journal, ``Diabetes,'' as well as serving as a volunteer for the American Diabetes Association. His expertise has benefited numerous organizations and agencies, including the National Institute of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the U.S. Congress. One of his colleagues, Dr. Neil White, stated, ``He was an outstanding teacher and mentor and role model for all who knew him.'' Yet another, Dr. Sheridan Tollefsen, stated, ``His life was exemplified by his boundless enthusiasm, warmth and generosity, his avid interest of sports and the outdoors, and his tireless efforts to help others.'' Mr. Speaker, I ask that you join his family, his colleagues, Washington University, the residents of Missouri's Second District and me, in paying tribute to the life of Dr. Julio V. Santiago. His leadership and compassion will stand not only as an example for other physicians to follow, but for every one of us.